American magazine Science Fiction WAS adventure fiction. In its earliest form, (now known as Science Fantasy because of out-dated science) SF was first and foremost a literature of adventure. Edgar Rice Burroughs created worlds of dinosaurs, tharks and giant monsters. Burroughs was working from earlier masters like H. G. Wells and Jules Verne, who at their best were also adventure writers. Who can forget the thrill of venturing into the Morlocks' underground city? Escaping from the Martians' fighting-machines? Travelling under the sea with Captain Nemo? And Burroughs wasn't the only one. There was Garrett P. Serviss, Homer Eon Flint, George Allan England, A. Merritt and Ray Cummings. The magazines were filled with stories of adventures in far off places and incredible worlds.

With the coming of Hugo Gernsback in 1926, gadget fiction started poorly with dull scenarios about new inventions. Eventually Gernsback got the mix right, balancing new inventions with adventurous plotlines. Amazing Stories was the first all Science Fiction publication. From these pages came adventure tales by E. E. "Doc" Smith, the first realistic aliens in Stanley G. Weinbaum's "A Martian Odyssey", and the original short novel of Anthony Rogers called Armageddon 2419, later Buck Rogers in comic strip form. The original tale is one of war and excitement. The comic book tamed things down quite a bit and took "Buck" into space.

Then Gernsback lost his magazines in 1929 and they became part of the Tieck Publications chain. Hugo Gernsback started over, creating Wonder Stories. This book would later be sold to the Thrilling chain and become Thrilling Wonder Stories. Golden Agers like Lester Del Rey bemoan this loss. And if Astounding is for you the only measuring stick I guess it is terrible when SF magazines become adventure SF magazines. I disagree. Thrilling Wonder Stories produced many of the great classic adventure tales like the weird SF of Clark Ashton Smith, the early SF of John Wyndham published under his real name of John Benyon Harris. Otis Adelbert Kline, Ralph Milne Farley, Edmond Hamilton, Stanley G. Weinbaum, Raymond Z. Gallun, Donald Wandrei, Neil R. Jones, Eando Binder, Robert Moore Williams, Henry Kuttner,  John Russell Fearn, Arthur K. Barnes, Carl Jacobi, Frank Belknap Long, Manly Wade Wellman and a host of others. Some of these writers could write for John W. Campbell's picky Astounding, others could not or did not want to. Thrilling and other magazines like Weird Tales provided a place for adventure-oriented tales.

In 1940 Edmond Hamilton would begin as the author of Captain Future, an all-adventure SF magazine. There would be others: Planet Stories, Stirring Science Fiction, the Perry Rhodan series in Germany. As SF matured into the 1950s there seemed to be room for many kinds of SF. Much of it was published in book form by authors like Andre Norton, who was never a magazine writer. Robert A. Heinlein thrilled a whole new generation of kids with his juvenile SF novels.

Today an author need not apologize for having an exciting story with plenty of ideas and thoughtful extrapolation AND action and adventure. We are lucky. We have George Lucas to prove the mix still is a winner even decades after these publications faded from magazine shelves.